Hat Yai Tong Rod

In late November 2025, floods across nine southern provinces affected nearly 3 million people, with Hat Yai hit hardest; families were evacuated and whole communities cut off. Flood victims needed a way to ask for help that any phone could open instantly, with no app to install, and that put an exact location and a phone number in front of rescue teams in Songkhla. Our team had to build the flood relief platform in the middle of the crisis — and keep it up when huge numbers of people arrived at once.

This disaster-response platform had to go live mid-crisis, so our team ran everything (the website, sign-in, data and notifications) on ready-made cloud services rather than servers someone would have to look after, and designed each step around one help request: from a victim dropping a pin to a helper arriving and the case being closed.

1. 1. A help-request site that opens instantly, no install

   Victims open the site from any phone and can add it to the home screen like an app. They sign in with their Google account, so there is no registration form and no new password to remember in an emergency.

2. 2. Help pins on a live map

   The map opens on Hat Yai. Tap to drop a pin or type in coordinates; each pin says what is needed (food, medicine, a boat), with a name and phone number. Crowded areas group together so the map stays readable, every pin has an Open in Google Maps button for directions, and shops still trading can pin themselves with an open or closed status.

3. 3. Real time on every screen

   A new pin appears on every responder’s open map straight away, with no refresh, and requesters can filter the map to just their own requests.

4. 4. Claim, notify, close

   A volunteer claims a pin with their name and number, and its status turns to claimed. The requester gets an alert in the page and on their phone with the helper’s name and number, and confirms help received to close the case. A victim’s name and number are shown only to the pin’s owner and authorised responders.

5. 5. Hand the data to Songkhla and BDI

   We handed the platform to Songkhla agencies to receive requests and dispatch help, and passed the request data to the Big Data Institute (BDI) to centralise relief on the government’s behalf.

The emergency phase is over. The site’s front page is now a thank-you to the agencies that used it, confirming the relief data has been handed to BDI to be centralised on the government’s behalf.

• 1,000,000+ people at once

  At the peak of the Hat Yai flood the platform served more than 1,000,000 concurrent users, as reported by the project team.

• Help requests from any phone

  Flood victims opened the site, signed in and dropped a pin with no app to download, and local rescue teams saw each request in real time.

• Every request has an owner

  When a volunteer claims a case, the requester is notified with the helper’s name and number, and closes the case once help arrives.

• Data in government hands

  Requests were routed to Songkhla provincial agencies and the Big Data Institute (BDI) to centralise the relief effort.